Empireland (Sathnam Sanghera)

The subtitle for Sathnam Sanghera’s text is: ‘How imperialism shaped modern Britain.’ The word imperialism is deployed to mean empire, but of course there is a distinction between the two, in the sense that we can refer to ‘empire’ as being the entity, and ‘imperialism’ as being the structure, framework, and practices of the empire itself.

He makes some sustained arguments about the negatives of empire, but ultimately argues in favour of a positive mindset regarding the British state as an entity, attempting to bridge differences rather than reinforce them. This could be argued to be an admirable aim in an age of division, and we can say that he is mostly successful in presenting the case that empire can be jutsificably criticised alongside moving forwards as a society and as a community of people. Criticism does not need to mean division or disorder.

Some preliminary questions are as follows: what is Britain? who are the British? what was the British empire? was it good, bad, terrible? did empire bequeath positive things to the world? or has it brought unquantifiable harm?

These are not easily answered, particularly with regards to what we define as the British people. There is an argument to be made, in fact, that it is now too late to bring the so-called British peoples together, if they ever really were together. Perhaps not many people would identify themselves as British above other factors, most notably labels such as Welsh, or Scot, or English – perhaps, then, in a strange way, British is a term more familiar to the children of empire, those people who became British through the process of imperialism.

It quickly becomes apparent, however, that an underlying theme of this text is that of decolonisation, a practice which spans culture and society, the process by which imperialism is challenged (notwithstanding direct action and so on). The word 'decolonisation' is a a shot of chilli sauce to the gammon brigade, who feel threatened by the term (a term they are unlikely to really understand), but is a increasingly important framework of analysing the modern world. Decolonisation ca be applied to a range of areas in society, not least the approved curriculum of education, which in turn influences (in some small way) the mindset of the next generation.

Sanghera argues that “we must confront this shared past if we are ever to understand who we are as a nation.” Again, it is admirable in the sense of Sanghera attempting to forge unity in a time of such fragmentation, but this is tricky ground in the sense that Britain is not a nation, but instead a political union with frayed edges and custard stains.

For Sanghera, “empire explains why we have a diaspora of millions of Britons spread around the world. Empire explains the global pretensions of our Foreign and Defence secrataries. Empire explains the feeling that we are exceptional and can go it alone when it comes to everything from Brexit to dealing with global pandemics [...] Empire explains our particular brand of racism, it explains our distrust of cleverness, our propensity for jingoism.” We can add to this, as indeed Sanghera will later do, that Empire also explains the diaspora within the shores of the British Isles. By extension, we may say that empire and colonialism has informed the content of peoples within other empire-based lands, and so we are left with a very simple premise that entities such as empires will by their process amalgamate ‘other’ peoples, and that the identify of the entity therefore shifts over time. Perhaps it is in recognising the shifts, appreciating the changes in appearance, which can most bring some sense of unity, for every empire is an unnatural and fragile thing.

Sanghera, a second-generation Sikh, makes clear from the outset that this is a personal text and journey for him. He goes some way to explaining his own experiences of his identity being formed, the gaps in self-knowledge, how he has been shaped through the education system. The Sikhs, Sanghera notes, citing the relevant Wikipedia page, are often put forward as one of the best examples of “cultural integration in the United Kingdom”. But Sanghera considers how this perception is not without difficulty, citing the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, when, it is argued, “the moment the Raj lost its grip” on the empire. He also notes the “collective punishment” imposed on Amritsar, amongst other crimes of empire.

As we have learned in Superior, amongst other reflections, the time of the British Empire and colonialism was underpinned by theories of race. Sanghera himself observes that “everything about the way empire operated during this period of history was racialized”, with the Sikhs gaining a reputation as a “warrior race”, in part informed by them being considered as loyal subjects – other examples include the Highlanders and the Gurkhas. Sanghera labels this as a “fetishization”, and there is an odd tone to much of the discussion around race at this time, and even into this day: the racist or the man/woman obsessed with racial difference does so with a wet mouth, a pounding chest, dilated pupils.

Drawing upon his own experiences, Sanghera notes that the Sikhs are an example of the irratitionality of the British Empire’s perspective on its “subjects.” They are on the one hand revered, lauded for their “martial prowess and their assimilation,” but at the same time were still regarded as servile, lacking intelligence, brown, and ultimately disposable.

He spends some time considering the infamous Enoch Powell, the inspiration and hero of today’s Punch & Judy character, investment banker, and actor Nigel Farage. Powell was an “ardent imperialist from childhood”, and he stated that there were three enduring principles of Englishness:

• Unity under the crown in parliament
• Historical continuity
• Racial homogeneity

Notwithstanding the fact that we have now moved from the discussion on Britain to speaking about Englishness, these three principles can all be challenged in our modern age as shallow.

For one, unity under the crown is a shifting wind, and if we may say that one day the institution of monarchy is abolished, then does this mean that Englishness passes with it? Next, the claim to historical continuity is tenuous. If there is such as thing as an England then we can look to determine the start point – some would have this with the Saxon invasion/migration/conquest/assimilation, with Edgar, but others may take issue with this. In the least we can say that it will have a end point.

With regards racial homogeneity, Powell was writing before a time (though this is not to excuse him) in which we understood how closely connected we all are genetically, and the idea of race is all but now a fringe belief, similar in a sense to believing that the Earth is flat or that the building (and destruction) of a Third Temple on Temple Mount in Jerusalem will bring about the second coming of Christ.

Both Englishness and Britishness, then, are invented and shifting things. For some, like the Powells and Farages, the sponsored voices who, at best, mislead for their own personal gain, and at worst operate on behalf of nefarious actors to the detriment of the citizens they mislead, they use this impermanence and malleability in order to create division. If these terms can be said to be like clay, then so too is the idea of a subject within the empire or the land.

Empire, Sanghera notes almost with a blush, has had a “difficult history.” It went on for a “long” period, some 4-5 centuries, and it spanned a considerable space. The territorial peak is estimated at 13.71 million miles, or 24% of the Earth’s land area (or 94% of the Moon’s surface). The source material to analyse is extensive, and it was also an incredibly violent time.

Another question posed is when did empire end? For Sanghera and others it was the 1919 massacre in the Punjab, when the empire “lost the moral argument” in the same sense that Israel has, belatedly, lost the moral argument in favour of its existence through its genocide of the Palestinian people. Some also argue for 1930, when Gandhi “gained traction”, or 1947 when the British withdrew from India. Others point to the Suez Crisis (or Tripartite Aggression) in 1956, or the ceding back of Hong Kong to China in 1997. Some even argue that the empire still persists…

The start is even more difficult to pin to the board. Sanghera cites “escapades” in Ulster, Chesapeake, New England, the Caribbean (or West Indies), Western Africa, Newfoundland and India. Or when Cabot set sail from Bristol in 1497 under the commission of Henry VII, or in 1757, when the Indians lost the Battle of Plessey to the East India Company.

And how did it start? Sanghera states that there was never a “clear motivation for the establishment and development of empire.” It depended on the co-operation of local elites, and the loyalty of settlers, and both of these at times may not have been present. Many people argue, then, that empire was acquired through a “bunch of accidents, errors and unintended consequences.” In part, this may be seen to cleanse the project, or to make it seem less horrid, which would be to do a disservice to the peoples affected at the start of this enterprise.

Sanghera advances that there are two distinct phases of empire. The first was from the start of the 17^th century through to the 1780s, with the development of sugar plantations in the West Indies, which “involved a large number of settlers to the American colonies and the Caribbean”. These were mainly companies of private individuals, and this period ended with the American War of Independence. The second phase was a “concerted power grab” in India and Africa, at first dominated by the East India Company, which was then taken over by the British state in 1858. Sanghera does not, however, note any of the imperial actions undertaken by the British in the far east, such as in China, or in the middle east, such as in Palestine.

He argues that the relationship with the colonies varied over time, and that the culture and tone of empire also “varied wildly”. For example, from 1660 to 1807, there was a great deal of profit from the Atlantic Slave Trade, before the empire itself took a “leading role” in abolishing it. This is an overstated position, and often used as a kind of defence of empire, as in “look, it wasn’t so bad, because we abolished slavery.” There are many flaws with this position, but perhaps the best way to address it is to point to the Revolution in Santo Domingo (that is, Haiti), and note the impact of this in weakening the French Empire, Britain’s direct competitor at this time.

Nevertheless, support for the empire was never “unanimous”, writes Sanghera. There were famous champions, indeed, such as Cromer and Curzon and Kitchener, Kipling and Rhodes, Disraeli; but opposition included Graves, Orwell, Wells, and Gladstone. This brings us to an important point, which Sanghera helpfully terms a “binary consideration” of whether empire was good or bad? As with all binary oppositions there is much to be explored before we can even attempt an answer, and the spectrum is as thin as strand of a spider's silk. Or perhaps a simple question can have a simple answer?

One way we can look to answer is to consider the actions undertaken by the empire. We have already noted the use of human slaves, the dispossession of indigenous peoples of their land and resources, in addition to massacres and war crimes. Sanghera also gives an example of less well-known activities (or “escapades”), such as the invasion of Tibet in 1903, evidencing that one of imperialism’s core practices was looting.

Tibet was one of the “last unmapped spots on the planet,” and Colonel Younghusband led an expedition of 18,000, including a Dr Laurence Waddell, who is described as a real-life Indiana Jones, and who referred to Tibetans as “more like hideous gnomes than human beings”, and enemies “not only of ourselves, but in some sense, by reason of their savagery and superstition of the human race.” This was not a successful mission, despite the resulting Treaty of Lhasa, one of a host of incredibly unequal treaties imposed by the empire upon other people.

“To keep armies motivated,” writes Sanghera, “plunder was seen as the reward for victory.” This is something that can be followed back to the East India Company and, if we want to be controversial, the Crusades and the modern-day Crusades into Iraq and Afghanistan. Sanghera goes to great lengths to establish the controversy of loot (also referred to as 'artefacts' or 'collections') held in British museums. This is an apt analogy for the sense of entitlement in the minds of the leaders of empire, and we could argue that this has extended, or imprinted, into the minds of followers of folk like Farage.

Museums, Sanghera notes, existed before empire became a “significant enterprise”, but personal collections did have imperial connections which grew as empire grew. As this coincided with the Age of Exploration, you can see how wanderers/explorers/colonialists were on the lookout for things of interest, whether for personal gain or for learning.

A new generation of activists now feel the same way about museums as others feel about zoos. Sanghera notes the calls for museums to be decolonised. There are many reasons to restore “imperial artefacts,” with Sanghera noting that the strongest single point is as follows: “what happened with imperial loot was, in many cases, bitterly condemned at the time.”

We know that attitudes and taste can change course over the decades, deviating and the returning here and there, but it is interesting to note that the respect of private property has been a key concern for human beings in our modern form, perhaps with the shift from hunter-gatherer-foragers, nomadic with an essence of impermanence, to band societies based around farming and settled agriculture, storing and hording and so on.

Sanghera cites the Hague Convention of 1899, one of the first multilateral treaties to address the conduct of warfare, a forerunner to the Geneva Convention, which declared: “Private property cannot be confiscated”, and that “pillage is formally prohibited.”

In addition to this, people seeking the repatriation of artefacts are “often talking about essential national and religious materials, which they require for reasons of basic self-esteem and dignity.” He gives the example of imagining that Stonehenge was shipped abroad – the outcry here, perhaps understandably, would be vociferous. No doubt there would be some who would argue that the stones had originally been take from some other place, but the rationale for moving them would still be questionable.

David Cameron, one of the greatest political minds of the British political history, stated in 2010 that “if you say yes to one, you suddenly find the British Museum would be empty”, which is an easy spoonful of softened gammon, but makes no real sense when examined. Sanghera notes, for example, that a great many museum collections are actually kept in storage, with only a small percentage ever on display.

The central ideas in this sense are around ownership, the ability to claim and to hold, which gives one a sense of power and control, which in turn impacts upon the sense of belonging of the people. As with may things concerning morality today, these ideas are encapsulated in what has happened in Palestine and to the Palestinian people over the past century.

Ultimately, Sanghera uses the examples of museum exhibitions/collections and the idea of looting/booty to introduce the idea of belonging – what (and whom) belongs where (and to whom)? How is belonging defined? If objects and artefacts from other peoples and places can be argued to belong to empire/Europe/etc, then what about the people themselves?

In the next chapter, Sanghera explores the topic of why we (as in, members not considered by Powell and his acolytes to be “racially homogenous”) are in the British land? He quotes Sri Lankan writer Ambalavaner Sivanandan who states:

“We are here because you were there”

Sanghera uses the example of the incredible Sake Dean Mahomet to evidence a “simple and profound fact about Britain: it is a multicultural, racially diverse empire.” This needs a little unpicking, because the point may not be as striking to some: basically the land of the British Isles has a shifting stock of peoples within it – it is flawed and foolhardy to claim that Britiain is racially homogeneous.

For one, immigration is not a new habit. This was happening during the age of the East India Company, during the slave trade era, and included Black Loyalists who fought for the British in the American War of Independence. Sanghera goes on to describe notable people such as Soojee Comar Chuerbutty and Mary Seacole, as well as communities such as those in the wake of the Second World War, including the SS Windrush generation, as well as Ugandans expelled by President Idi Amin, all of whom came to the land and integrated and contributed. His particular focus, of course, is the age of empire, but before this there were many migrations, including the aforementioned Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes, the Normans, and the Celts before them all. In doing so, Sanghera challenges the narrative that “brown people imposed themselves on Britain.” Most importantly, subjects peoples of the empire have contributed greatly to the land.

But, as we know, “Britain has long struggled to accept the imperial explanation for its racial diversity.” This is a kind of “imperial amnesia”, he notes. Why are we here, indeed? This question is also asked of so-called second generation immigrants. For one thing, our parents could do jobs that other chose not to do, or were unable to do. This was particularly the case after World War 2, when “it became clear that restoring the British economy would need a great surge of overseas labour.”

In another way, we are here because we were invited here, helping to rebuild and cultivate. In addition, centuries of imperialism had made us not only subjects, but citizens, as evidenced in the 1948 Nationality Act.

Sanghera, however, is clear that he is opposed to communities being “isolated and myopic.” In other words, he too raises the importance of what we might term cultural assimilation.

Anecdotally, I have childhood friends who refer to areas in our hometown (for a long time a place for international students to study language) as ‘Baghdad’, the insidious implication being that the area is being colonised or taken over by nasty Arabs/Muslims. And he would no doubt point to areas in other towns and cities where there are large communities of people considered not “racially homogenous”.

There are important considerations here, and it would be foolish and unhelpful to dismiss people who express concerns about this. For one thing, it should be noted that communities of migrants often come together to create communities in other lands – the same is true of Brits in Spain, for example. It should also be noted, as Sanghera justifiably does, that the emphasis always seems to be on the migrant to assimilate, but much less emphasis on the so-called “host” to accommodate and welcome. Both, undoubtedly, have responsibilities.

Nevertheless, the point stands that the British Isles have long been a place for migrants, the human species being a migratory and part-nomadic species. Look at the Cheddar Man, for example – could we say this is the face of the first inhabitants of the isle? As Robert Winder notes in Bloody Foreigners:

“Britain has absorbed migrants at a thousand points and times. Its history is the sum of countless muddled and contradictory experiences.”

So there is a good reason why Britain has a range of people living here, and this is both historic (we could argue prehistoric also), in the sense that this isn’t a new phenomenon; and it is also beneficial, in the sense that this isn’t a sign of a breaking/broken Britain.

Sanghera observes the modern history of British emigration abroad. Between 1853 and 1920, for example, some 9.7 million people left the isles. Some went to Canada, some to Australia, some to New Zealand. Up to 1984, in fact, Britain was a “net exporter” of people. These days we also have the practice of wealth and public utilities being moved overseas, which has a far greater impact on society than migrants arriving on the shores.

In addition, Sanghera notes that far from integrating, expats and British immigrants do much the same in terms of creating their own communities. Perhaps the fears of some people about communities of people within the isles as a fear rooted in guilt?

A further interesting observation made by Sanghera is the association of empire with travel and adventure, which can also be seen in the huge industry relating to tourism and travel in the UK. This is not unique to the British, or even to the colonial powers and modern-imperialists – travel and adventure are both part of our essence. He makes a leap, however, that “at its darkest, empire served as an opportunity for men to play out fantasies of violence, the imperial arena providing ample opportunity to demonstrate strength and power over people, over animals and in battle.” In short, however, as we can see from daytime TV which glamorise escapes to the sun, or great railway adventures, travel is a sign of social status, and the reasons for this can be applied to all people – our motivations are the same.

To summarise this section, he quotes Helen Zaltzman who writes:

“Britain is hostile to people arriving in boats because Britain knows what happened when Britain arrived in other countries on boats.”

But of course “multiculturalism” is a word which prompts great frothing at the mouths of some people. Sanghera writes that it has been “inspiring regular controversies and crises in British politics for as long as it has been a thing.” Ian Sanjay Patel observes a correlation between “perceived crises to immigration and perceived crises related to the end of empire.” In a sense, the “British British” or “English English” have a manifest fear in the sense that Empire puts them on a pedestal (or plinth) and so the toppling of this represents danger, which is of course literally represented in the toppling of statues today (and serves as a provocation for the cover art of the text).

As Sanghera writes, “significant political energy [has been] expended on the task of letting so much of our empire go its own way”. He cites, amongst others, Hong Kong being “handed over” in 1997 having been a colony since 1848, as if it were some kind of parcel or a silk-wrapped textbook.

The imperial tone dominates aspects of British politics, and this is particularly evident in times of crisis such as the Suez Crisis (or Tripartite Aggression) and of course the Falklands War, not to mention the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan where some commentators, pathetically, viewed the British as “liberators.” As we shall see in reflections on Yellow Perilism, further binary oppositions are created in terms of the West and Other, with a mental framework imposed which classes the Other as barbaric, and the West or British as civilized. There are recurring crises over Gibraltar, not to mention Scottish independence.

Sanghera takes the idea of binary oppositions further:

“In the imperial imagination, there are only two states: dominant and submissive, colonizer and colonised. This dualism lingers. If England is not an imperial power, it must be the only other thing it can be: a colony.”

With this in mind, the Brexiters honk their horns about the UK being a colony of Europe, and other fear a horde of great replacement, the oppression of “straight white males.”

The free-traders world was one of colonies; they believed countries should trade with Britain out of self-interest, not because of political bonds. But we can certainly question whether this was the case with the Opium Wars, or with British actions in the Middle-East and in India. Trade, in my view, appears to be a screen for other intentions.

Sangera also claims that Britain managed to have “influence in areas such as Ottoman Turkey and South America without colonization”, though we can still point to significant military “interventions”. He rightly references Palmerston annexing Aden in 1839, as well as British actions in China.

And the laissez-faire free-trade ideology led to calamities, such as the Irish Potato Famine, where the Irish were required to export produce (such as butter, grain, and livestock) to England. There were similar famines in India. Clearly, then, the idea of free-trade was for the benefit of one side more than the other.

Importantly, Sanghera notes the link between how Empire has fed our current political leadership, informing current events such as Brexit, and is a key mythos for figures such as Cameron, Johnson, and Farage.

In the next chapter Sanghera examines the transfer of wealth from colonies to Britain. Using the example of country houses, specifically Sezincote House, he notes that Britain “siphoned off” vast amounts of wealth from colonies such as India.

This was a “fact of empire”, and as General Charles Napier (who would become Commander in Chief of India) had it in 1844:

“Our object in conquering India, the object of all our cruelties, was money.”

And as Lord Salisbury had it in 1878:

“If our ancestors had cared for the rights of other people, the British empire would not have been made.”

The wealth accumulated, in turn, secured political power, one example being Thomas Pitt, governor of Madras, who purchased a diamond in 1702, sold it for profit to the French Regent, the Duc d’Orleans, bought an estate and a parliamentary seat, and went on to produce two Prime Ministers: William Pitt and William Pitt ‘the Younger.’ We can view this is as positive, in the sense that positions of power were accessed through social mobility, though it still emphasises the point that wealth leads to power. Another example given is William Gladstone, whose father was one of the largest slave owners in the British Empire.

Country houses became the favoured asset to “launder colonial booty”, with 1/3rd of National Trust houses and gardens “tainted by wealth from slavery or have treasures plundered from overseas.” Dadabhai Naoroji estimates that between 1835-1972 Britain received approximately £13 million (or £7.6 billion in today’s terms) worth of goods annually, with no corresponding return of money. Utsa Patniak estimates this was some $45 trillion between 1765 to 1938. The proceeds from the imperial projects in Africa were integral to the British economy for more than a century.

Sanghera argues that the colonies were not always lucrative, however, and he states that we can also, in some cases, point to some social improvements. The taxation within colonies was a small motivator to improve living standards. He also concedes that it is difficult to hypothesise a world without empire, and there are limitations in the data in terms of analysing what actions were specifically linked to empire.

Sanghera recommends, therefore, that we focus on the detail rather than the macroeconomic landscape. He notes the City of London, centre of the international bullion trade, and the links to the East India Company. We can also point to the clear fact that slave labour, and then indentured labour, was vital in at least “propping up” the economy of Britain.

He next examines the brutality of empire, the inhumane treatment of subjects, citing the Tazmanians as a specific example. This “catastrophe” was used as a case study by Rahpael Lemkin when he formulated the concept of genocide.

The brutality and inhumane aspect of empire means that, for Sanghera, racism is part of the cultural DNA of Britain. We know from Superior that race is a relatively modern concept, and that there was lots of dehumanizing behaviour and talk before race was invented. During the time of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, “Britain was dehumanizing black people on a super-industrial scale.” Then, “as British empire grew and peaked in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it morphed into nothing less than a wilful, unapologetic exercise in white racial supremacy.”

With the emergence of “race science”, the British began to see themselves as an imperial race. Such ideas are reflected in cultural artefacts such as Kipling’s ‘White Man’s Burden.’ Sanghera gives a range of direct quotations from people such as James Mill, The Spectator, The Manchester Guardian, and Cecil Rhodes to note the imperialist views, asking how much of this “supremacist view” still holds today?

Genocide-apologist Piers Morgan is noted to have “berated” the academic Kehinde Andrews for suggesting that Britain was built on racism. We can ask: are British views on race really as simplistic and arrogant as those of the French and the Americans? Sanghera cites the abolitionist movement that anti-racism came from within empire, but I think we can say that there will always exist strains within a society which challenge imperialist and fascist practices. We can say within any organisation or tribe or grouping, there will be a spectrum of beliefs and ideas, regardless of the ruling class or power structure.

As we know, we live in a time which still has a fear of miscegenation, with IOF-handled agents on plinths bleating great replacement theories. There also exists a colour bar and consideration of race within the job market, no matter what people say about there being ‘affirmative action’ and so on.

Sanghera progresses his argument: the subjects of empire had/have many skills to offer society, but were often precluded from doing so. Now, the idea persists about “good” immigrants and races, with the corresponding idea that there are immigrants/races which are not so good. The British Empire was a racist institution, he argues, and this has in turn “institutionalised” racism through to today.

The institutionalisation of the imperial mindset was cultivated in the public schools of England, whose success is regarded by Sanghera as another legacy of empire in which the children of powerful and wealthy families were prepared and trained for empire. To this day, these people, such as Rees-Mogg and Johnson and Cameron, hold positions of great power and influence.

Sanghera references Edward Said and his famous conception of Orientalism, remarking of his own “quintissentially British, private-school Oxbridge education.” This valued western history, western literary forms, western geopolitical forms. Perhaps this is understandable, but there is a case to be made that the gaps in this curriculum lead to gaps in sight and understanding. Sanghera concedes that he may have been “colonized” psychologically and that “education can be a tool of colonialism.”

In addition to the British ruling elite, elites in the subject colonies were also educated in the British way in order to be subservient, or to be trained as “colleagues” as Lord Curzon had it, including figures such as Jawaharal Nehru, who was educated at Harrow and Cambridge.

Sanghera rightly asks what is the impact of this formal training on the colonizer? He cites Orwell (himself educated at Eton) and his essay ‘Shooting an Elephant’ which, Sanghera argues, suggests that:

“colonisalism can not only dehumanize colonizers, but render them absurd.”

Sanghera at times tries hard to shake the frosty hand, to attempt some reconciliation with the imperial mindset. He displays pride for British achievements, citing such major world contributions as the Premier League and certain TV formats. He also lists some more tasteful achievements, such as theatre and universities, whilst also warning against “empires of the mind”, such as jingoistic pride, leading to a “toxic cocktail of nostalgia and amnesia.”

But how do we come to a reckoning of empire? Commentary on the “darker aspects” of empire, he notes, is dismissed as “anti-British”. It goes further than this: if you don’t “celebrate” empire, you are somehow anti-British, viewed with suspicion. We are told to be grateful, to avoid insulting the nation.

For Sanghera, the most “significant manifestation of imperial amnesia is surely the way we forget the contribution empire made in both world wars”. In World War 1, for example, over 3 million people from the empire and commonwealth contributed to the war effort. Importantly, this leads Sanghera to invite the question as to how and why a nation may “interrogate” its past. Notable examples here will include Japan and Germany, both of whom committed huge atrocities during war times, and both of whom were subsequently invaded and occupied. In both nations, there has been some measure of an honest reflection (though Korea and China may challenge to what extent this is true of Japan). We might also ask whether Germany’s position on the genocide of the Palestinians is in some way informed by their own atrocities. Indeed, both Britain and America have much to reckon with when we consider Palestine and the Middle East.

Ultimately we may say this comes back to education: children need a broader, decolonised curriculum of learning, and this needs to extend to adults also. But there isn’t, as far as I can tell, an institution or body that can commit to such an undertaking unless it were derived from the government. If we look at China (as we started to do), we can see a civilization characterised by respect for education and for history, in spite of cycles of revolution and fragmentation.

Sanghera begins to reassert his main points: “there are more serious and troubling imperial legacies than statues of imperialists,” namely:

• Museums full of loot from other nations/places.
• The failure to acknowledge that we are a multicultural society because of empire (and that we are better for it).
• Our sense of exceptionalism has led to dysfunctional politics, with a ruling class still focused on the shadows of empire made upon their dusty private school walls.

As he explicitly returns to the central theme of decolonisation, Sanghera outlines that this is an amending, or “widening”, of the curriculum, giving a wider scope in order to include the full picture. There is, of course, a danger in the sense that there will always exist some omission and bias, but if we can compliment the amended curriculum with emphasis on critical thinking and discernment of sources, then we could shape a new generation of thought.

This is opposed, however, by powerful and vocal goblins, a “new breed of culture warriors” such as the Conservative right who are “not interested in national unity”. They want to sow seeds of division and “encourage racial discord.” In these reflections we have often see the theme of divide and rule deployed, and this is perhaps no less clear (and no less infuriating) than in the various discussions of key issues today, not least the Palestinian genocide. Everywhere we turn it appears as if the country, society as a whole, has gone insane, though it should be noted that the culture warriors and people like Farage with their sense of entitlement are overall the kind of people who shout the loudest and who have learned that shouting often gets them things. They are loud, but this doesn’t mean they are right or that everyone will fall for their shouts. Importantly, it doesn't mean that their views are as widespread as their shouting would have us believe.

Sangerha ends with reasons to be optimistic about this bitter war. The culture war, he notes, isn’t new. It has happened time and again, and very often it is the liberal and humane voices that last. In addition, it may not succeed: the right-wing Conservatives (and, we could add, the new right-wing Labour government) may be wrong about the voters (that is: the so-called working-class bloc), though it should be noted that Sanghera’s book was written in 2021, which may seem like an infinitely more optimistic time than today. He also writes that the younger generations of society are more progressive and positive.

Again, I think we need to state that this was written in 2021, before a genocide was livestreamed to us daily. The impact on society as whole, and perhaps especially the younger generations, may be much more chilling than we can ever anticipate, though we can also reasonably say that the genocide against the Palestinians could become a tipping-point for so-called western society, with mass uprisings and revolt. Very well, but what about the Palestinians themselves in the here and now?